“Really?” said Sam disgustedly. “And how many ‘second chances’ do we human beings deserve?”
Ledger shrugged. “Considering how many mistakes we make, Sam . . . I guess we need as many chances as we can get.”
Sam snorted. “Since when did you become an optimist?”
“Always was, brother,” said Ledger. “Always was.”
They set off at the fastest speed that a tired horse, a tired dog, and two tired old soldiers could manage.
87
THE DEAD THING CLAWED ITS way to the top of the wall and reached for Gutsy.
“Not a chance, sweetheart,” growled Alethea, and bashed it with Rainbow Smite before Gutsy could react. The creature was one of the smarter ones, and it tried to grab the bat—proving to Alethea that it was not quite smart enough. The impact sent it flying backward off the wall. “Buh-bye!” Alethea laughed out loud and swung at another withered gray face.
Gutsy did not smile as she fought. Every inhuman face she saw seemed to have a human and conscious one painted over it. Her whirling mind convinced her that she saw the pleading in those dead eyes.
And yet, she fought. There was no other choice.
Her crowbar was smeared with black and red blood, and her arm ached from each and every blow she’d delivered. She did not keep track of the number of los muertos she’d fought. Eight, so far? Maybe ten. Even though it was one at a time, the total exertion was incredible, and it would have been bad enough if she hadn’t run all those miles in the dark. Sombra crouched beside her, terrified and furious in equal measure. Gutsy did not want him to fight, because she didn’t know what would happen if the coydog bit an infected. Would he be okay? Would he become one of the living dead animals people reported seeing? Would he become a carrier even if he didn’t become infected? Or would he get sick and die? It was clear the animal wanted to fight, but he obeyed Gutsy’s commands. So far, at least.
The last time she risked a look over the wall to see if she could spot Alice on the street below, the girl was gone. She did see Karen and two of her guards standing firm between a group of old people and kids and a pack of fast-infected. Karen carried a pump shotgun and fired, pumped, fired, pumped, fired, getting head shots every time because the monsters were too close to miss. The children screamed and hid behind their grandparents.
There was another fight farther along the street, and Gutsy was surprised to see Mr. Cuddly walking almost casually toward some oncoming shamblers, firing a pair of what looked like old-fashioned cowboy six-shooters. His face was completely devoid of expression—not fear, not stress, not joy—as he killed a monster with each shot. He handled the guns with an icy precision, and Gutsy did not believe that his skill came only from battles since the End. Maybe the rumors about him were true, and he used to be a gangster. Maybe even an assassin. He was cold enough.
His wife was nearby, and she had a heavy meat tenderizer mallet in one hand and a meat cleaver in the other. Her clothes were splashed with dark blood and there was a trail of crumpled los muertos behind her.
Gutsy grinned, liking the two of them for the first time. Mrs. Cuddly looked up and their eyes met, and then she looked past Gutsy to where Spider and Alethea fought. The woman nodded as if pleased. Then she went back to killing.
It was all surreal.
Not everyone in town was doing as well. There were bodies here and there, and a few were twitching their way back from whatever dark waiting room lay on the other side of death. They rose and stalked forward to join the fight. With a breaking heart, Gutsy saw that one of them was a teenage girl a year younger than her who lived at the Cuddly place. Mrs. Cuddly hesitated before striking her. In that moment, the girl threw herself at the older woman and they went down in a thrashing tangle behind a parked wagon.
Gutsy spun away, sickened and horrified. She rushed to the other side of the catwalk and looked to see hundreds of the dead funneling through the corridor of cars. The outer gate stood open and topped by ravagers. Only the inner gate was still shut, but more of the killers were climbing up the walls. The town was being attacked from all angles. Smoke rose from fires that she couldn’t see, and it was impossible to tell if the ravagers were starting fires, or if lamps in town had fallen. Either way, that created an even worse problem.
Armed guards flanked where she and her friends fought, and Gutsy was happy to see that they were picking their targets and conserving their ammunition. Panic was always nipping at the edge of everyone’s awareness. There were a thousand people on the walls, but every time one fell, it left a gap through which the faster dead and the ravagers poured through.
Below, in the streets, the rest of the townsfolk fought for their lives.
How can we win this? Gutsy wondered as she wiped blood on her jeans to allow her a better grip on the crowbar. Over the years she’d thought of a hundred good ideas for defending the town, but no one ever took her seriously. Most of those ideas were long-range, requiring time and coordinated effort, like a moat around the town filled with thousands of sharpened spikes or pieces of jagged rebar. Or a network of wires and ropes that would create a kind of maze and barrier. The shamblers wouldn’t have the brains to climb over them, and the smarter ones, fewer in number, could be picked off by archers or armed guards working in teams.
Dozens of ideas like that.
This was an immediate problem, though. What could she do right now?
The guard to her right suddenly cried out, and in same instant Gutsy heard a shot. She whirled to see the guard stagger, weapon falling, hands clutching his throat. He stumbled backward and fell from the wall. Into the town.
It was the third guard shot in the chest or throat. No head shots, even though the ravagers had rifles. Why not? In a flash of insight, she realized that the shot was probably not accidental. Not where it was aimed, at least.
They’re not just shooting to kill. They’re creating a new part of their army inside the walls.
Every person who died reanimated as one of los muertos, and that was math that didn’t require Spider’s counting skills.
We’re going to lose this fight, thought Gutsy with dreadful clarity. We’re all going to die.
88
“GUTSY,” CRIED SPIDER, “WATCH OUT!”